01:988:303 Comparative Feminisms

This course aims to explore the diversity of Black feminist theorizing undertaken by women in different parts of the African diaspora. Our primary focus will be to raise discussion about the diversity of African women’s lives across continents, based on an understanding on their social subject positions through their own cultural productions, primarily the written word, and also art, music, dance, dress and other cultural forms. We shall discuss the question of what “feminism” means in Black/Africa worlds by looking at the issues through three concentric circles; what are the local gender constructions through which women are socialized?; in what ways do these accord with or contradict notions of women as subjects of a state?; given these two sets of issues, in what ways do Continental African feminist strategies (if the can be seen in any unified manner) differ from or parallel strategies evolved in the United States or other parts of the Black world to deal with similar concerns?